


Five Times Wesley Didn't Lose His Arm

by Baylor



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe, Friendship, Gen, Love, Sacrifice, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 12:01:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10437315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baylor/pseuds/Baylor
Summary: I found a stash of old Buffy and Angel fic while I was clearing out my hard drive that don't seem to have seen the light of day before, so here you go.References the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 3 episode "Bad Girls", and Angel the Series Seasons 1-5.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I found a stash of old Buffy and Angel fic while I was clearing out my hard drive that don't seem to have seen the light of day before, so here you go.
> 
> References the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 3 episode "Bad Girls", and Angel the Series Seasons 1-5.

“But it’s my first week on the job,” Wesley said once again to Giles, blinking in confusion.

Giles tried to smile at him reassuringly. “The ambulance is nearly here,” he said. “I can hear it now.”

Angel shifted on Wesley’s chest, pressing harder on the mangled stump that used to be the Watcher’s left arm. Behind them, Buffy was setting fire to what remained of Balthazar and his minions before the paramedics arrived and got an eyeful.

Wesley lifted his head, craning to see the damage. “I don’t think they’re going to be very pleased with my report,” he said faintly, and let his head fall back.

“Not to worry,” Giles said. “You did very well.”

“Thank you,” Wesley said, and shuddered. “I think – I think – I rather like controlled circumstances better.”


	2. Chapter 2

He wasn’t even that surprised that it had been the wrong demon. Par for the course, that. He supposed he was getting what he deserved.

Angel being there made no sense, but crushed under the body, no feeling at all in his arm and the floor becoming ever wetter from his blood, Wesley didn’t try to puzzle it out. Too much longer trapped by the creature he had hunted when he should have protected it and he would have lost more than the arm. Wesley knew he should be grateful but the emotion choked him when he tried to get it out, so instead he just said no, there was no one Angel could call, and shut his eyes.

When he opened them, Cordelia Chase was beside his bed, and this was strange enough that it jolted him past the bitter self-pity he’d been nursing since coming around after surgery the day before. She gave him a blinding, forced, frightening smile and offered him the straw to his water glass.

Cordelia, it seemed, was Angel’s secretary. The vampire had opened some kind of detective agency. She seemed both older and younger, tougher and more brittle, and her eyes were often shiny with moisture. Sometimes this happened when she looked where his arm should be, but other times it was random, and Wesley didn’t think it had to do with him at all.

He didn’t ask her what it had to do with. He had very little energy and was prone to falling asleep mid-sentence. Everything around him seemed to move very fast and it was difficult for him to keep track.

Angel brought him some books, and when it was beyond Wesley to read to himself, the vampire started reading aloud to him. Wesley thought perhaps some of his confusion was due to happenstances such as a vampire reading him bedtime stories. Still, Angel had a nice voice, and it soothed Wesley while his body ached and his thoughts tumbled around themselves.

One day, the people at the hospital said Wesley was ready to go home. He stared at them blankly and then signed their forms. A nurse helped him get dressed and then he sat on the bed in utter confusion. The nurse went to get a wheelchair. He had a motorbike somewhere, he remembered suddenly. Not that he could ride it one-armed, but maybe he could sell it and use the money for a place to live, at least for a while. He puzzled over this problem while he waited for the nurse to return. 

“Hey, ready to go?”

He looked up. Angel stood in the doorway, Cordelia behind him.

“Go?” he echoed.

“Yeah, get out of this fashion-deprived hellhole?” Cordelia answered.

Wesley blinked. “Where am I going?” he asked. The nurse came up with the wheelchair and Angel took it from her, pushed it over to Wesley. Cordelia came in and picked up the sad little bag of Wesley’s belongings.

“Duh,” Cordelia said. “Home with us. Where did you think you were going?”

Wesley contemplated the wheelchair, the vampire and the cheerleader-turned-secretary. He swayed a little on the bed and Cordelia gently steadied him, sliding an arm around his shoulders carefully. She gave him a little squeeze.

“You ready?” she asked.

He took a deep breath. “Yes,” he said, and got into the wheelchair.

Perhaps he was getting much more than he deserved.


	3. Chapter 3

He only made it a few steps. The blast tossed him face-first onto the steps, and he lost consciousness for the briefest of moments. 

When he opened his eyes, everything was bathed in flickering orange light. There was an enormous roaring behind him. Wesley was acutely aware of a pain in his right knee, a stabbing in his ribs, and blood dribbling down his face. He blinked again and tried to focus without his glasses, which must have been knocked off. 

His arm was lying on the other side of the stairs. His fingers were stretched toward him, reaching for the body they had always known.

Wesley wanted to lift his head, to see what was left, but his body wouldn’t respond to his instructions. One leg kicked futilely, trying to leverage himself up, but the rest of him just twitched. He was hyperventilating.

 _Why doesn’t it hurt?_ he thought. _Why aren’t I screaming?_

He lay there and stared at his arm. There was a great splitting noise from Angel’s apartment, and he knew the building, or at least the part he was in, would come down soon. He had to get up. 

He got the one knee from the semi-working leg down on a step and pushed with it. His body bumped forward, up one step, toward the first floor, and escape.

He kept his eyes on his arm as he made one more step. _Should I take it with me?_ he wondered. 

“Wesley!” someone screamed. “Wes!”

Not someone. Angel. Wesley tried to answer but choked on smoke instead. But he heard, naturally, because, yes, vampire, very useful, and then Wesley couldn’t see his arm anymore because Angel’s face was in front of his, looking horrified, saying his name over and over, telling him it would be all right, and then he was picked up and carried out of the burning building, and he wanted to tell Angel, _Don’t forget my arm_ , but only gasps and wheezes came out.


	4. Chapter 4

Angel couldn’t look at him in the hospital. Just one brief glance and then his eyes bounced away.

Wesley sighed and shut his eyes, turned his head away. Did he really have to be the grown-up here? He was the one in the hospital bed, after all.

“It wasn’t you,” he said wearily. “I know it wasn’t you. Besides, bringing Angelus back was my plan. Using Faith to capture him instead of kill him was my plan. Don’t add me to your list of sins.”

Angel was quiet for a long time, shifting uncomfortably. “All right,” he said finally.

When he continued to stand there, Wesley said, “Was there something else?”

“No,” Angel said. “We’re good.” He left and Wesley allowed his body (what was left of it) to relax.

“Yes, actually, there was something else,” Angel said, coming back into the room with a billow of the trenchcoat that Wesley could actually hear. “You’re a real pain in my ass, Wesley, you know that? Bringing back my evil inner twin, breaking rogue Slayers out of prison, falling in love with my mortal enemies and making me feel bad when they get killed, getting your damned arm chopped off by the fricking Scourge of Europe. I can’t leave you alone for one damned minute, you know that? Or you’re off getting shot by zombie cops and stealing my baby and saving my life and it’s all just … very confusing and I’ve had enough of it so you’re just gonna have to … come home and get better and then stay there because … You’re a real pain in my ass, did I say that already? And I need to know what you’re up to and that you’re OK and so that’s … all.”

Wesley turned his head and opened his eyes while he waited for the end of the diatribe.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Angel said uncertainly. “About which part?”

“That you’re done,” Wesley said dryly.

“Oh, yeah. I’m sure about that part,” Angel said. 

“Then I’d like to get some sleep,” Wesley said. “You see, I’ve had my arm chopped off by the fricking Scourge of Europe and apparently I’m going to have to get better and come home and put up with you for an indeterminate amount of time and I’m going to need some fortitude.”

Angel put his hands in his pockets. “Not an indeterminate amount of time,” he said. “I mean, you’re human. So you’ll, you know, die. Being you, sooner rather than later. Although it looks like it might be in incriminates.”

“Your bedside manner is appalling,” Wesley said, and he wasn’t going to smile at Angel even though Angel had the beginnings of that stupid, dorky, happy grin on his face. The fricking Scourge of Europe had cut off his damned arm, and Wesley thought he didn’t have to smile anymore unless he really, really wanted to. 

“Please go away,” he added.

“OK,” Angel said, and that was definitely more than the beginning of that stupid, dorky, happy grin. “But I’m coming back. Try not to,” he waved a hand around vaguely, “open a portal to hell or blow up the building or have sex with your nurse.”

“I make no promises,” Wesley said, and shut his eyes again. 

“All right,” Angel said. “I’m really leaving now.”

“Mm-hmm.” 

The trenchcoat rustled. 

“Just as soon as you’re asleep.”

“Angel?”

“Yes, Wes?”

“Good night.”

“Good night, Wesley.” 

He may have imagined it as he drifted off into a lovely morphine-enhanced sleep, but he thought cool lips pressed to his forehead before that obnoxious trenchcoat billowed back out of the room.


	5. Chapter 5

“It’s just an arm,” Wesley said, not for the first time.

“What do I even say to that?” Angel countered.

“Good on you!” Spike supplied. Everyone ignored him. 

“But Wesley!” Fred wailed, and he thought she might start crying again. “Your arm!”

“Our medical staff is really the best,” Wesley told Angel. “I should be back at work next week.”

“They can probably get you a replacement,” Gunn said.

“Whoa, Nelly!” Lorne exclaimed. “Have we all forgotten our good friend Mr. Lindsey and his evil hand? No replacement arms for the senior staff! I’m worried enough about what this one might do day-to-day without giving him possibly nefarious limbs!”

Angel was still giving him an unreadable look. Wesley sighed.

“I couldn’t let her die,” he said. “People say things like, ‘I’d give my left arm to have such-and-such.’ Well, I gave it for Fred. And personally, I think it was a bargain.”

Fred did start crying again at that, and buried her face into his good shoulder. 

“Do you have any idea what this means?” Angel said darkly.

“Yeah,” Spike said with relish. “You’d better marry him, Fred, and make lots of, well, probably not fat babies with the two of you, but lots of smart babies and live happily ever after. Man gave his arm for you!”

“I’m amenable to all of that,” Wesley said, and Fred lifted her head and kissed him.

“We might make fat babies, you never know,” she said. “Genetics is strange like that, how two blonde people will have a dark-haired baby, or suddenly out of nowhere a couple will have one stray ginger child. We could have fat babies, if you’d like, Wesley, and I’m sure they’ll be smart too, and I’d love to marry you and live happily ever after, and –“

He shut her up with a kiss.


End file.
